Duty, Fear, and Love. What is Your Driving Force?

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I had a conversation a couple of day ago with one of our Sports Vision Clients (#ChargeLife) regarding some universal driving forces that each one of us has in the world. The conversation was brief, but kept my wheels turning the whole ride home. We talked about some deeper level topics and it got me thinking about something I learned/realized while I was living in the Philippines (many years ago). There are 3 driving forces in our lives that cause us to do... well, basically anything: Duty, Fear, and Love.

Fear may be the least honorable form of motivation, but it's still motivation. For instance, I work everyday, gain clients, close deals, etc. because if I don't my fear is that I won't be able to pay my mortgage and end up losing my house. There's also an innate sense of fear that if I don't provide for my family, they will go hungry when it's time for dinner. The same can be said of obeying the laws of the land while I'm driving in my car, I have a fear of getting a ticket if I'm caught disobeying. I'm not suggesting that we live our life in a constant state of fear, but the motivating factor behind a lot of decisions we make, might very well be because of fear of the consequences.

Duty is looked at as a more admirable form of motivation. Whenever I think of the word duty, I think of my brother serving in the military (Thank you for your service brother!). He might have a sense of fear for following his commanding officers, but he enlisted because of his sense of duty to his country. He's always been a patriot in that regard. Relating back to my previous examples, I could say that I work with a sense of duty for my wife and children to provide for them because that's my responsibility as a husband and father. Anything you do really, I eat better than when I was in high school because this body is a gift and I have a duty to take care of it (something our pro guys take to another level).

Love is in fact the most noble of motivations. The more I think about this, the more I feel like the impetus for each one of our actions should be love. I can say with absolute certainty that I work because I love my family and I want to take care of and provide for them. Many of our athletes work because they love the game they play, be it Baseball, Football, Motocross, etc. They're doing what they do because they love it, money just happens to be a byproduct. In fact, I've noticed those athletes that are playing because of a sense of duty or fear are not as effective as when they're doing something they're passionate about. You can see it in their faces! When the sport they play becomes a "job" their sense of participation begins to waiver and their productivity falters. Make sure you love what you do and your motivations will always be pure. Not only that, but your production in what you do will always be at your peak.

Growing out of the Unconscious

image: beliefnet.com

I read a quote by Zen Buddhist scholar Daisetz T. Suzuki that states:

"If one really wishes to be master of an art, technical knowledge of it is not enough. One has to transcend technique so that the art becomes an 'artless art' growing out of the Unconscious."

So much to analyze in this statement! It's not enough just to know something. When we really transcend our craft, whatever that may be, it starts to become us. I had a marketing professor talk about his wife and whenever she was upset about service at a restaurant or a shopping experience, he would ask her to analyze where the store owner might have broken down in their value chain for their own business. He wasn't doing this to antagonize her, but he lives marketing everyday and it comes through in his unconscious. 

You can take a mental note and find out what it is that's coming through in your Unconscious making it an "artless art". I think about our athletes and they eat, breathe, and sleep their sport so they are intrigued when they come across something they know nothing about (say, sports vision training) that could help them know their trade even more so. In training these athletes on a daily, one-on-one basis, I can see pretty quickly who is playing for the paycheck and who is playing because they love the game and it comes through their Unconscious. I finished my MBA a couple months back and though I love Real Estate and Sports Vision, I've come to realize that I'm an Entrepreneur who happens to be in these industries not the other way around. My focus is to make the companies better and increase the value we bring to our clientele.